laze.nethttp://laze.net
practicing imperfectionSun, 22 Apr 2018 01:17:07 +0000en-UShourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=4.9.54386837120 Years of Blogginghttp://laze.net/fait/archive/2018/04/20/20-years-of-blogging/
http://laze.net/fait/archive/2018/04/20/20-years-of-blogging/#respondFri, 20 Apr 2018 15:03:08 +0000http://laze.net/?p=4956123 years ago, in late 1994 (December?), I launched my first web site. I wrote about that on the web’s 20th anniversary.

I decided to start this page to kind of accompany the what’s new page… except that page deals with new stuff on the site, while this page will give some brief updates about what’s been going on with me. Not terribly interesting, I admit, but people want to know these things, for whatever reason.

Right now, though, I’m too tired to bother doing much of an update… here’s now in a nutshell: 1 1/2 weeks of class left, less than 4 weeks to graduation, a month and a half until I leave for Vietnam, and three brain cells until mental destruction.

I had a section on my site for a while before this titled “what’s new sitewide,” which just acted as a changelog for the site itself. But this post was the start of a reverse chronological section I initially titled “what’s new lazewide” (I think) which eventually became “what’s up with laze.” Almost two years after my first blog post, I played around with pitas for a couple of months. On July 19, 2000, I launched twist of fait accomplis, the blog you’re reading now. I eventually rolled all the old content into twist of fait.

In “Save the Drama for Your Mama” I wrote about how horrible the local FOX affiliate news was at the time, but it blew up because of a discussion in the comments about the time the weatherman, who was dating a reporter, allegedly cheated on her with another reporter at the same station. Oops. (Also, people have opinions about weather forecasters.)

Another popular post continues to be my interview with Phyllis Wilcox from 2002. Who is she? A woman who was very close with one of America’s most notorious serial killers, Henry Lee Lucas.

My post about Erika Sifrit, a former student at my alma mater that was thrown in jail for murder, continues to get visitors. I have an unapproved comment on that post sitting in WordPress that starts, “I was also in [prison] with Erika let me tell you she was a piece of fucking Shit.”

The blog was never huge, but it’s had its moments. The most important thing is that between it and the Ping, the blog captured the things I was reading, thinking, and doing for a long stretch of my early adult life.

These days I’m not writing in my blog as frequently. A few times a year. But not a month goes by where I don’t think, “You know, I should post to my blog again.” And since I’ve cut my Facebook usage about 95% since the beginning of the year, maybe I will finally do it.

After I finally catch up on my year-in-review posts going back to 2016…

]]>http://laze.net/fait/archive/2018/04/20/20-years-of-blogging/feed/049561Three stories from Election Day 2017http://laze.net/fait/archive/2017/11/14/three-stories-from-election-day-2017/
http://laze.net/fait/archive/2017/11/14/three-stories-from-election-day-2017/#respondTue, 14 Nov 2017 13:00:45 +0000http://laze.net/?p=49526(from last week, when I served as a precinct chief)

1.
A woman overvoted on her ballot (meaning that she’d filled in two circles on a race where she should have only filled in one), so I explained to her that she needed to spoil her ballot by filling in all of the circles and then I’d provide her a new one. She spoke and understood some English, but struggled understanding what I wanted her to do. “Does anyone here speak Spanish?” she asked me. I looked around and didn’t think so, so I pulled out my phone and fired up Google Translate. It worked perfectly. +1 technology.

2.
Aside from a couple of “you let all the illegal aliens vote!” conspiracy theorists, the voters were all very civil throughout the day. The big exception, however, was the final person I interacted with that day. He showed up to vote 15 minutes before polls closed, but he was on the books as being in a different district. He was sure he was supposed to vote here because he’d moved and had a new license so obviously he’s supposed to be able to vote here. He insisted he checked the box on the DMV form to update his voter registration, but my records showed that no update had been received. I called the registrar to do some further checking when it came out that he’d only changed his address a week ago (all changes needed to be done by October 16th). I explained that he wouldn’t be able to vote in our precinct because he’d missed the deadline by two weeks. He was livid. He yelled in my face that I was not letting him vote and I was telling him that his vote wouldn’t be counted. His volume increased and people started looking over. My poll workers watched in horror. He tried to embarrass and bully me into letting him cast a ballot. It didn’t work. He left as the polls were closing screaming about how he was going to tell people about this and make it public.

(No matter how angry you get at the polls, please remember that the workers there are not full-time employees. They work once or twice a year for minimum wage as a service to the community. Chill out and take it up with the registrar.)

3.
A woman brought her elderly father in to vote. He used one of those walkers that has a seat attached to it. He moved slowly through the polling place, insisting that he would stand while he filled out his ballot. He gave chocolates to each poll worker he interacted with. He cast his ballot. On the way out, his daughter told us it was the first time he’d been out of bed all week but he was adamant about voting in person.

The woman came back in a few minutes later with her mother. She used the same walker and similarly moved slowly through the polling place. She stood, she cast her vote. As she was walking out, her daughter came over again and said, “I just wanted you all to know this… my parents have been married 66 years and found out within 48 hours of each other that they have stage 4 cancer. But they insisted on coming out to vote today.”

So, to anyone too lazy to vote or who think that their vote doesn’t count so they’re not going to bother: you can do better. No excuses.

]]>http://laze.net/fait/archive/2017/11/14/three-stories-from-election-day-2017/feed/049526Ghost Town Jukeboxhttp://laze.net/fait/archive/2017/08/03/ghost-town-jukebox/
http://laze.net/fait/archive/2017/08/03/ghost-town-jukebox/#respondThu, 03 Aug 2017 22:11:52 +0000http://laze.net/?p=49501During a trip to Las Vegas last week, we made a trip to Nelson, NV, a former mining town with a lot of… stuff. Lots of old barns, rusting vehicles, and even left over props from movie shoots.

One of the items that caught my eye was a beat-up jukebox in one of the barns.

It took me about 3 seconds to realize I needed to make a playlist of the songs on the jukebox. So I took photos of each section to make sure I could read which songs were included and when I got home, I put together the playlist. It’s only missing a couple of the tracks:

I think the newest tracks on there were Bowie’s “Let’s Dance” and a few Prince tracks from around the same era (1983 or so). So, I’m guessing this thing has been sitting unused for at least 33 or 34 years. There’s some good variety in the list. My only complaint? Way too much Bob Seger.

]]>http://laze.net/fait/archive/2017/08/03/ghost-town-jukebox/feed/049501“Cynicism … makes you into an extremely boring person”http://laze.net/fait/archive/2017/01/19/cynicism-makes-you-into-an-extremely-boring-person/
http://laze.net/fait/archive/2017/01/19/cynicism-makes-you-into-an-extremely-boring-person/#respondThu, 19 Jan 2017 21:56:44 +0000http://laze.net/?p=49400Joseph Gervasi, who I met through Exhumed Films 16 or 17 years ago, recently did a short introduction to a double feature of Killer Klowns from Outer Space and Deadly Spawn. The show was a benefit for James Harris of docterror.com and the Horror Sexy podcast, who is battling Ewings Sarcoma.

It’s not what I would have expected to come from introducing such a double feature. You should watch. It’s really good.

It’s easy to malign or laugh at small subcultures or communities that form around niche interests (here, fans of horror and cult films). It’s easy to dismiss them as wastes of time. But in almost every case, these groups are so much more than collections of people with a common interest. They’re groups that can support and lift up members during times of need.

Additionally, he speaks on the importance of hope and generosity:

Cynicism, I think, is the worst possible attribute that anyone can have. It makes you into an extremely boring person, a very ineffective person, and someone who is in no way artistic or creative.

]]>http://laze.net/fait/archive/2017/01/19/cynicism-makes-you-into-an-extremely-boring-person/feed/0494002016: My Year in Reviewhttp://laze.net/fait/archive/2017/01/05/2016-my-year-in-review/
http://laze.net/fait/archive/2017/01/05/2016-my-year-in-review/#respondThu, 05 Jan 2017 23:24:34 +0000http://laze.net/?p=49269Like most other folks I know, I’m ready to flip the bird to 2016 and move on. In April, I officially shuttered my tea shop, which was a tad depressing. It was a rough summer with kidney stones that never seemed to leave. September was about as eventful as could be. And we closed out the year on a somewhat stressful and less than healthful note. But there was a lot of good stuff, too. Made some big time breakthroughs on the family tree and connected with a lot of new family, did a lot of running, had a great anniversary trip with Huyen, and enjoyed some really fun times with our kids and dogs.

Thanks to thin walls, I hear an older gentleman getting a hernia check followed by a prostate exam

The kids and I fight various stages of walking pneumonia

More visits to the doctor and imaging centers than I’ve ever had in one month

RIP

Based solely on the folks I RIP’ed on Twitter (or FB). People (and “people”) I knew personally in bold. Dates are when I tweeted/posted to FB, not the actual death date. Lots of commonly-eulogized folks omitted.

1/10: Mitsu Suzuki

1/18: Iron Mike Sharpe

1/27: Angus Scrimm

3/8: Mr. Edwards (2 months late)

6/22: John Reynolds

7/20: Rose Dooley

8/16: Bobby Hutcherson

10/26: Bob Browne (three months late)

11/8: America

11/18: Sharon Jones

12/29: Mini-Moo

12/31: Huston Smith

Books I Finished Reading

Listed in order finished.

A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki

Essays After Eighty by Donald Hall

Preserving Your Family’s Oral History and Stories by Thomas MacEntee

Sky Above, Great Wind: The Life and Poetry of Zen Master Ryokan by Kazuaki Tanahashi

Finding Samuel Lowe: China, Jamaica, Harlem by Paula Williams Madison

Ferdydurke by Witold Gombrowicz

Don’t Be a Jerk: And Other Practical Advice from Dōgen, Japan’s Greatest Zen Master by Brad Warner

The Year in Numbers

Number of miles run:
901.67

Gallons of liquid consumed from 10/4-12/31 (approximately):
82.1875

Movies watched:
53

Books read:
22

Songs listened to:
11785

]]>http://laze.net/fait/archive/2017/01/05/2016-my-year-in-review/feed/0492692015 Music Year in Reviewhttp://laze.net/fait/archive/2016/12/16/2015-music-year-in-review/
http://laze.net/fait/archive/2016/12/16/2015-music-year-in-review/#respondFri, 16 Dec 2016 22:34:33 +0000http://laze.net/?p=49172(So, um, yeah. I’m a little late with this. I never quite finished it up last year, but I need to get it out there before this year’s end-of-year wrap-up sneaks up on me. I never quite finished all my commentary, but I figured it was time to just post it and I’ll fill it in later… someday.)

Since 2007, I’ve posted a year-end music wrap up that serves mainly as a reference for myself and a few other folks that like to see what I enjoyed (I wish more friends would do the same). I try to stick to new music, no re-releases. Here is this year’s.

Everything’s sorted in alphabetical order. (Note: My general rule of thumb is to try and link to the album at the location the artist will get the most money (Bandcamp, their label’s site), but there are still a few Amazon mp3 store links in there (and they’re affiliate links).

Best of 2015

Abstract Rude: Keep the Feel: A Legacy of Hip-Hop Soul
Solid grown-ass man hip-hop. “The Solution” with Brother Ali and Slug is excellent, as is “I Lived in a Time.” There are several massive posse cuts, large enough to be well beyond what you normally see in 2015.

Barrington Levy: Acousticalevy
Barrington sounds as good as he ever has, his voice indistinguishable from his prime in the 70s and 80s. Occasionally the songs go a touch long and of course I cringed hearing autotune on “Times Hard” and “Only You” but otherwise: what an album. Deserved the Grammy nomination it received. (And thankfully, he seems to be on the mend after contracting Dengue Fever midway through the year.)

Ibeyi: Ibeyi
An early-year contender for album of the year, the French-Cuban musical twin sisters create a ghostly masterpiece of minimalist soul. Beautiful.

Josa Peit: Constellation EP
One of my favorite vocalists dropped this abstract gem of an EP this year. Hoping she’s at work on a full-length LP for 2016.

Kamasi Washington: The Epic
The appropriately titled hours-long jazz project that goes from spiritual to free to funky and sounds solid no matter the subgenre. I love that music like this is still being made.

Sadat X: Never Left
Out of all the emcees that have been around since the 80s, Sadat’s got to be one of the most continually active of them. He does guest spots everywhere and still drops frequent solo albums. Never Left was an early year dose of classic hip-hop from one of the best and most distinctively unique voices hip-hop’s known. Super solid pairings with the UMC’s (both of them!!) and Dres from Black Sheep.

Scarface: Deeply Rooted
30 years into the game and Face still puts out some of the most engaging solo albums out there. A solid listen from start to finish with no filler.

Other Stats

]]>http://laze.net/fait/archive/2016/12/16/2015-music-year-in-review/feed/049172Personal Preservationhttp://laze.net/fait/archive/2016/09/30/personal-preservation/
http://laze.net/fait/archive/2016/09/30/personal-preservation/#respondFri, 30 Sep 2016 18:01:53 +0000http://laze.net/?p=49272I’m a big believer in preservation. Why else would I bother digitizing and cataloging old cassettes few people care about or a radio show from the 1990s? Obviously, cultural preservation is important to me. Similarly, I think institutional preservation is in companies’, non-profits’, and schools’ best interests so that they have an accurate, complete, and accessible archive available.

But, perhaps more important than any of these is personal preservation.

Personal preservation isn’t about backing things up (wait–you are backing things up, right? Oh, next month when you’ve got some free time? No. NOW. To a hard drive, to the cloud, and maybe to a second cloud or hard drive that you keep at someone else’s house). Personal preservation is about saving what you create, capturing your thoughts for the future, documenting your legacy. It sounds like something only a philosopher or politician might need to bother with, but let me tell you: I’d give anything to read my great-great grandmother’s 1800s equivalent of a Facebook update, even if it was just about how she was “feeling annoyed” because washing machines hadn’t been invented yet.

We have a tough time, in the present, foreseeing what we or someone else might find interesting or useful in the future. We may think we have a grasp on it and trust ourselves to filter things out in real time, but as far as I’m concerned, if it’s something you deem worthy of posting to Twitter today, it’s worth hanging onto for the future. Even if it serves no purpose other than rounding out a more complete picture of who you were during 2016’s presidential election, that’s enough.

Here’s what you can do right now to get started…

Set up a folder on your computer somewhere called “Backups – social media.” Make sure it’s one that gets backed up (see above). Bonus points if it exists in a Dropbox/OneDrive folder and is backed up to something like Crashplan or Backblaze.

Under that folder, create one folder for each of your social media accounts (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram).

Periodically download backups for each of those services and store them here. Make sure the filename you save includes your name, the name of the service, and the export date in YYYY-MM-DD format (ie. facebook-ryan_macmichael-20160929.xml). Bonus points for doing this on a schedule (monthly or quarterly should be plenty).

How do you download backups for different services? (Feel free to request others and I’ll add them here.)

Google: Google Takeout lets you download your entire Google life (including things like Blogger and YouTube) or select parts of it from one spot. Be forewarned that your backup could be pretty huge if you include your Google Photos.

What should you do with all this stuff? Just hang onto it. Maybe occasionally peek at it to see what’s there. Make something from it… think a yearbook of your Facebook posts or Instagram photos. Having a physical object of something digital isn’t a bad idea, really. Or, if you’re looking for an ambitious coding project, make a compiled timeline view of the data.

The main thing, though, is to make sure people know where it is. If something happens to you, make sure there are some people that can get to it and that they’ll care for it. This can be informal or you could spell it out in your will (or, more likely, a letter of instruction referenced in your will).

Not convinced? Remember this:

No one else is going to preserve you for you.

Sure, the Internet Archive will grab blog posts and assorted tweet archives exist, but what if your Twitter account is private? What about Facebook? What about services that exist only as (or primarily as) mobile apps? You need to take responsibility. Be your own archivist.

]]>http://laze.net/fait/archive/2016/09/30/personal-preservation/feed/049272Hey there.http://laze.net/fait/archive/2016/09/01/hey-there/
http://laze.net/fait/archive/2016/09/01/hey-there/#commentsThu, 01 Sep 2016 17:42:48 +0000http://laze.net/?p=49304While I’ve been pretty slack posting here over the last few years, but I feel like I’ve been even more neglectful of my long-time home on the web than usual. Partially, that’s because I find myself sharing less personal stuff publicly… but that’s not really an excuse. There’s plenty more to talk about.

I’ve got a handful of posts that have been sitting in partially-finished draft mode for months and I’ve continued to make a lot of quiet work on sideprojects. There are some new projects in the works and lots of ideas kicking around. Same as always, really.

Anyway, just wanted to say hi and say things are good. If you happen to spot this in your RSS reader (what now?) or by accident when googling me, take a sec to say hi in the comments. In the meantime, a picture from our recent 15th anniversary trip to St. Thomas.

]]>http://laze.net/fait/archive/2016/09/01/hey-there/feed/349304My First Blank Tapehttp://laze.net/fait/archive/2016/03/09/my-first-blank-tape/
http://laze.net/fait/archive/2016/03/09/my-first-blank-tape/#respondWed, 09 Mar 2016 20:10:50 +0000http://laze.net/?p=49237Back in 1984, I got my first blank tape. I don’t remember if someone gave it to me, if my parents bought it for me, or if I saved my own money to get it. It had a very distinctive smell to it (which lingers ever so slightly to this day) and ended up becoming the first tape where I recorded my favorite songs off of the radio and record (by holding my boombox up to my turntable’s speaker). This is the tape, a relatively unassuming Certron 90 minute cassette, scrawled with my horrible handwriting:

For fun, I decided to throw together a Spotify playlist of all the tracks on the tape. I wasn’t able to include the “Michael Martian” version of “Thriller” (Michael Martian was an alien version of Michael Jackson that I drew, represented aurally by a 33 1/3 RPM record being played at 45 speed), which came after “The Stroke” on side B. I also wasn’t able to close out the mix with The Chipmunks’ version of “The Longest Time,” so I opted for Billy Joel’s original instead.

]]>http://laze.net/fait/archive/2016/03/09/my-first-blank-tape/feed/0492372015: My Year in Reviewhttp://laze.net/fait/archive/2016/01/05/2015-my-year-in-review/
http://laze.net/fait/archive/2016/01/05/2015-my-year-in-review/#respondTue, 05 Jan 2016 12:00:11 +0000http://laze.net/?p=490212015 was a year of preservation, of family history and otherwise. It was a year with its fair share of loss. It was a year where life moved forward, progress was made on some things but not on others, and the kids continued to grow. I turned 40. I saw lots of family and friends. I read more books, watched fewer movies, scanned lots of photos and slides, digitized hours of videos, and made absolutely no new music.

And now, the year past, with cold lists and numbers with a few photos and colorful graphs thrown in.

Found my long lost copy of a Hall & Oates bio from the 1980s. Realized it’s going for $90+ on Amazon!

Started the archiving process of ripping on VHS tapes

Huyen’s mom in town for her annual month-long visit

Watched BIL and SIL do their first triathlon in Wildwood, NJ. Met up with childhood friend Lisa, who I hadn’t seen in 28 years (!) and her parents Alex and Mary (who I’d seen a little more recently). Also caught up again with Randy Senna (from the Daily Ping Fascination post and Hoarders).

September

Dad turns 70!

Hit with a bogus $160 at Verizon Wireless in NY and an attempted $3200 charge for xray equipment. Result: yet another replacement credit card.

Learn more about the nuts and bolts of digital preservation (and digital preservation of analog content). I’m going to say done, but this is something ongoing so I’ll be continuing to do so.

Play and finish “A Mind Forever Voyaging.” Finally grabbed the game and an emulator to run it on (that will let me save my game) at the end of the year.

Read up on the story behind (and impact of) the Attica prison riots of 1970. Read A Time to Die and really enjoyed it. Learned a lot and much of it absolutely still applies.

Finally launch my protected family history site for my family (with audio, stories, etc.) Done, and ended up redoing it partway through the year and adding a ton of functionality beyond what I’d initially planned.

Figure out the mystery behind my great-grandparents’ life and trip to the US. Did not finish, but not for a lack of trying! I learned quite a bit through my research, but have yet to confirm the details surrounding my great-grandmother’s death (no death certificate to be found!) or much more about their life in Lithuania. This will likely end up taking a few more years.

Run 1000 miles in 2015 So frustratingly close… if I had an extra week I could have done it (I hit 970). I blame the three weeks I was out of commission due to a sprained ankle, but truly, if I’d just been a little less lazy in April and May, I could have easily knocked this out.

Books I Finished Reading

Listed in order finished.

Ballistics: Poems by Billy Collins

The Wolf’s Hour by Robert R. McCammon

Kakurenbo: Or the Whereabouts of Zen Priest Ryokan by Eido Frances Carney

Kangaroo Notebook by Kobo Abe

The Strange Library by Haruki Murakami

Early Recollections and Life of Dr. James Still by James Still

“Don’t tell white folks” : or light out of darkness by James T. Still (pamphlet)

Will Travel for Vegan Food: A Young Woman’s Solo Van-Dwelling Mission to Break Free, Find Food, and Make Love by Kristin Lajeunesse

Myself When I Am Real: The Life and Music of Charles Mingus by Gene Santoro

The Seventh Day by Yua Hu

Out on the Wire: The Storytelling Secrets of the New Masters of Radio by Jessica Abel

A Kim Jong-Il Production: The Extraordinary True Story of a Kidnapped Filmmaker, His Star Actress, and a Young Dictator’s Rise to Power by Paul Fischer

A Time to Die: The Attica Prison Revolt by Tom Wicker

The Way of Tenderness: Awakening Through Race, Sexuality and Gender by Zenju Earthlyn Manuel

The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can’t Stand Positive Thinking by Oliver Burkeman

The Year in Numbers

Trying a little something new this year…

]]>http://laze.net/fait/archive/2016/01/05/2015-my-year-in-review/feed/0490212015: The Year in Tweetshttp://laze.net/fait/archive/2015/12/30/2015-the-year-in-tweets/
http://laze.net/fait/archive/2015/12/30/2015-the-year-in-tweets/#respondWed, 30 Dec 2015 11:00:42 +0000http://laze.net/?p=49181While my year-in-review and music year-in-review are percolating, some tweets:

Ramsey informed me in a ten minute period that I:
* have a big nose
* am hairy (I just had a dog hair on me)
* am "very, very, very creepy"

]]>http://laze.net/fait/archive/2015/12/30/2015-the-year-in-tweets/feed/049181Poorly Organized Thoughts On Turning 40http://laze.net/fait/archive/2015/10/13/poorly-organized-thoughts-on-turning-40/
http://laze.net/fait/archive/2015/10/13/poorly-organized-thoughts-on-turning-40/#respondWed, 14 Oct 2015 01:03:36 +0000http://laze.net/?p=49124Turning 30 for me was absolutely no big deal. It didn’t feel like a milestone, I didn’t feel “old” all of a sudden, it was just another birthday. 40, though? Gotta admit: it feels different. It feels like a big number. For the first time, my idea of “old” didn’t shift along with my own age.

I know, I know. You’re only as old as you act, etc.

Despite feeling “big” in some undefinable way, it’s been difficult deciding what to write about turning 40.

I don’t feel like I have any deep wisdom to share, despite having learned a thing or three.

While I’ve clarified a lot of my own beliefs in my mind, I know they continue to be in flux.

A lot of things have happened during the last decade. Two kids and three dogs came into my life. I was vegan for the full decade (and then some). I was laid off, started a side business, and then took my second job since graduating college. Ran a few thousand miles. Yet, these things have nothing to do with entering my fifth decade. They just happened to happen.

I guess the only thing I have to share on the eve of my 40th birthday is this: I’m still figuring this all out. And I’ve got a ways to go, so I’m going to keep going.

Here are a few plans of mine going forward:

I won’t become the creepy old guy.

I don’t want to be the culturally or technologically out-of-touch old guy, but I also don’t want to be the old guy that looks like he’s trying too hard to hold onto his youth.

I will get over the hang-ups I’ve had since I was a kid that still haunt me.

I will embrace gray hair gracefully.

I will continue to look forward to New Music Friday. Forget this mess.

I will let my kids teach me.

As I was finishing this post up, I realized one thing I’ve gotten better at with age: taking things in stride (usually). And maybe that’s why I’m having trouble making too big of a deal about this birthday even though something deep in the back of my mind tells me this is big. Can a day be both monumental and just another day?

]]>http://laze.net/fait/archive/2015/10/13/poorly-organized-thoughts-on-turning-40/feed/049124The mystery of the brickshttp://laze.net/fait/archive/2015/07/09/the-mystery-of-the-bricks/
http://laze.net/fait/archive/2015/07/09/the-mystery-of-the-bricks/#respondThu, 09 Jul 2015 23:58:02 +0000http://laze.net/?p=49059As I was going through some photos of my grandfather’s, I came across this great shot of him I presumed was from the 1930’s:

Note the “With all my love” scribbled at the bottom. I’m guessing he gave this to my grandmother while they were still dating.

Naturally the question came up, “Where is he standing? Is there any significance to the location?”

Initially, I thought the “927” was an address, but I think it’s more likely the year (“1927”)

This was almost definitely taken in Philadelphia, PA

The brick configuration is unusual in that they’re all lined up [called a “stack bond,” I later found out]

Perhaps a church, given the cross, but the simplicity of the door may be more indicative of a church-related institution (like a school or convent)

My grandfather was Catholic, but that may or may not be relevant

I did some initial searches of Philadelphia buildings built or dedicated in 1927, but couldn’t find any images that seemed to match that unusual brick layout.

I got a bunch of good suggestions from the Ask Mefi thread that I followed up on: a company that does historic brick restoration in Philly (I wrote, they replied but didn’t recognize the building), the Philadelphia Archdiocesan Historical Center, and @roccopalmo (tweeted at him, no reply).

Things went quiet for a while until I was digging through a large box of photos my mom had brought by for me to scan and archive. Digging through some very small prints, I came across one of my grandmother that made me pause:

No doubt, that’s the same building that my grandfather was standing in front of. To make things more interesting, the back had an inscription:

Turns out that my assumption that the building was in Philadelphia held me back from finding the answer. I’m going to let my mom take over the story from here:

I Googled “McAdoo” and found that it is a small town in Pennsylvania. I thought perhaps it was a place where mom’s oldest sister, Sister Albertilla, had been stationed. I searched for Catholic schools in McAdoo but couldn’t find any pictures. Then I searched for “Sisters of the Holy Family of Nazareth McAdoo, Pa” [Sister Albertilla’s order] and found reference to St. Kunegunda Parish. I looked at a biography we received from the Sisters of the Holy Family of Nazareth when Sister Albertilla passed away and sure enough she had been stationed in McAdoo. It went on to say that “in the school and convent of St. Kunegunda, Sister served as principal and local superior. Here, too, she played the organ, gave piano lessons, and painted lovely pictures of nature in addition to her other responsibilities.” I did a search for “St. Kunegunda School McAdoo, Pa” and found a real estate listing for the building. Fortunately, it had a wonderful picture so we were able to compare the brickwork, doors, etc. After so many years the date was no longer visible [or they could have been standing in front of a different set of doors elsewhere on the building -ram] but we were pretty sure we had solved the mystery.

I then did one more search and found a PDF of “A Brief Historical Sketch of St. Kunegunda’s Parish.” Next to the last paragraph on the first page this was written: “On Sept. 23, 1927, the new school was blessed: the following year, Sept. 23, 1928, the Sisters of the Holy Family of Nazareth of Torresdale, Pa., opened the doors of the St. Kunegunda School to the increasing student enrollment.”

There was further proof! The year “1927.” It had to be the same building! Mom and Dad probably went to visit Sister Albertilla and took pictures of each other in front of the school.

What satisfaction to have finally solved the mystery of the building with unusual brickwork.

Well said, Mom.

…

Update: December 2, 2015

This past weekend as I was on the way home from northern Pennsylvania with my family, I noticed an exit sign that read “McAdoo.” “Folks,” I told them, “We’re taking a short detour.”

Less than five minutes later, we were parked in front of the former St. Kunegunda School and I was taking this photo:

There are spaces I visit frequently (ie. my parents’ house) where my grandparents had also spent time, but being able to take this shot today sent some chills up my spine. My grandmother was only 18 at the time and my grandfather 24, so standing in that place 78 years later as a 40-year-old was a connecting experience for me. The older I get, the more these odd little moments of connection to the distant past move me.

(Thanks to Chuck and Huyen for taking the shots.)

]]>http://laze.net/fait/archive/2015/07/09/the-mystery-of-the-bricks/feed/049059I am a runner, part two.http://laze.net/fait/archive/2015/07/03/i-am-a-runner-part-two/
http://laze.net/fait/archive/2015/07/03/i-am-a-runner-part-two/#respondSat, 04 Jul 2015 00:00:59 +0000http://laze.net/?p=48923In June of 2013, I declared myself a runner. Yes, I was only running occasionally, but I’d been doing it for long enough and enjoyed it enough that I felt it was OK to stop putting air quotes around “runner.”

A year later–almost to the day–Rasine was finishing up first grade and I realized I’d gotten used to rising early to get her to school. After school finished for the year, I figured I’d try an experiment: I’d keep getting up at the same time but instead of getting her ready and walking her to school, I’d grab a light breakfast and head out for a run. And, what do you know: it worked.

A few weeks passed and I was knocking out between three and five miles, five days a week. A few more weeks passed and I got the crazy idea in my head to sign up for a half-marathon, one suggested to me by a friend from middle school. This particular race was a notoriously hilly one, one that snaked through the battlefields at Antietam. I had three months to prep myself for a race that was three miles longer than that one time years ago I ran ten miles on a training run.

Now, a year has passed since I’ve started a regular running routine. In that 365 day period (which I’m marking as starting on the first day of my morning running routine, Monday June 16, 2014), I:

Ran 1002.86 miles, more than quadruple my previous best calendar year

Ran over 210 times

Averaged 83.57 miles per month (19 miles per week)

Ran 3 races (5k, 8k, and half-marathon)

Am on my third pair of shoes (started in Brooks Ghost, then Hoka One One Cliftons, and now Mizuno Wave Runners)

Was bitten by one dog

Took one week off in January to rest up and get rid of some nagging knee pain

PR’ed the Poplar Spring 5k (which I’ve run all 12 years it’s been in existence), running the semi-hilly course in 23:27 (7:33/mile pace) and finishing 28th out of 354

Suffered one injury, a sprained ankle at mile 1000.25 during a nighttime run that put me out for the last three weeks of my one-year experiment. Probably shouldn’t have run that extra 2 1/2 miles after spraining it.

Year two has begun, fresh off my ankle injury, and while I have no plans for any half or full marathons, I don’t plan on letting up. I probably won’t hit my 1000 mile goal for 2015, but I’m going to keep at it and try to knock out as many 100-mile months as I can from here on out. I turn 40 this year and I feel like I’m in the best shape of my life, so there’s no stopping now.

After my first half-marathon with Tara (a friend from middle school who told me about the race) and Sue (who forced me to think about running a half in the first place)

]]>http://laze.net/fait/archive/2015/07/03/i-am-a-runner-part-two/feed/048923Important unimportant goals for 2015http://laze.net/fait/archive/2015/02/02/important-unimportant-goals-for-2015/
http://laze.net/fait/archive/2015/02/02/important-unimportant-goals-for-2015/#respondMon, 02 Feb 2015 13:00:04 +0000http://laze.net/?p=49028Every year there are certain goals that repeat themselves: be a little better of a person every day, finish that album I should have finished in 2007, write more, etc. This year, I decided to instead think about the little things I wanted to do or learn that would make this year more fulfilling. And preservation, both in the forms of archiving digital and analog materials as well as digging deeper into family history. I’m approaching 40 and the big career goals and life goals don’t interest me quite as much. They’re still there, of course, they just occupy a further corner of my mind.

The theme for my list of 2015 goals is “doing stuff almost no one cares about (or has forgotten about) because that’s the stuff that’s most important (or not).” Interestingly, these items all have to do with history, archiving, or revisiting some part of my past. Maybe it’s the age inspiring reflection. I don’t live in the past, but I do like visiting.

Release one (two?) albums of old material, including some stuff I’ve never put out into the world. I’ve already started the process of the getting the first re-(re-)release ready to go. This may be up in the spring.

Bowl a few games of Canadian 5-pin. Requires going to Canada, so we’re getting our passports in order. Prerequisite: teach myself 5-pin scoring (even if I bowl at lanes with automatic scoring).

Finish archiving SJAUG Candy Apple newsletters from 1990. I got a good start on these last year and want to polish them off this year.

Launch the Raw Deal Radio archive. This Normal Bias spin-off site is underway but still needs a fair bit of work before it’s ready for the world to dig into. (Done as of Apr 4)

Learn more about the nuts and bolts of digital preservation (and digital preservation of analog content). Listening to podcasts. Taking classes. Talking to people.

Play and finish “A Mind Forever Voyaging.” I still have the original box and all its goodies, so I can have that beside me as I either play on my Apple IIe or as I fire up an emulator. I never finished it as a kid, but the game drew me in and inspired me to start on a few of my own pieces of interactive fiction.

Finally launch my protected family history site for my family (with audio, stories, etc.) (Done! Announced it to family before I published this post.)

Figure out the mystery behind my great-grandparents’ life and trip to the US. The story is that my great-grandfather was scheduled to be executed for organizing labor strikes and he and his wife escaped the country (which we assumed to be Poland but may have been Lithuania) and came to the United States, their months-old baby dying the day after arriving at Ellis Island. This will likely take hiring someone in Lithuania to hunt down records, land deeds, etc. to build a picture of who they were and where they came from.

Run 1000 miles in 2015(added 4/10/2015)

There are other more “important” goals, too, of course, but those are less fun to share.

]]>http://laze.net/fait/archive/2015/02/02/important-unimportant-goals-for-2015/feed/0490282014: My Year in Reviewhttp://laze.net/fait/archive/2015/01/01/2014-my-year-in-review/
http://laze.net/fait/archive/2015/01/01/2014-my-year-in-review/#respondThu, 01 Jan 2015 19:10:44 +0000http://laze.net/?p=487882013 was a year of great change (well, I changed jobs and started a business, but for someone that spent 14 years at his first job out of college, that qualifies as a “great change”). If I had to classify 2014, I’d have to say it was one of the best years I’ve had in a while. It was the year I started a serious running regimen and ran my first half-marathon. It was the year I started a podcast. It was the year I started archiving old user group newsletters on the Internet Archive. (On the downside, I lost both a cousin and a neighbor to cancer.) Of course, this is strictly on a personal level; at a nation and world-level, ish was pretty awful this year.

Here’s a look back at my year with unimportant events mixed in with unimportant events. A few pictures are thrown in. Some links. Etc. Thanks to ThinkUp for making it particularly easy to find content to include in this post.

Started the second half of the year off by stepping up my running routine big time

Ran a good Race for Independence 8k (7:50/mile pace)

July

Hit the batting cages with Alex and Rob for the first time in years. Got an enormous blister.

Helped a turtle that was on his back

August

I get an e-mail from a third cousin that found me via a DNA match on 23andme. We’ve been in close touch since fleshing out our family tree!

Family trip to Smith Mountain Lake

Family trip to Lancaster, PA and Dutch Wonderland

Ran 13 miles and felt like I’d run into a brick wall by the end

September

Our neighbor Ron passes away after a long fight with brain cancer.

October

Ran my first half-marathon, the Freedom’s Run, which goes through the battlefields of Antietam. I finished in just under 1:57 (the official time was a bit off since it was gun time and not chip time). Ran it with middle school friend Tara and Loudoun Veg friend Sue.

The Bing Maps street view camera caught a shot of me walking at lunchtime. When they came back around, I mugged for them with the full-on gunshot finger points, but sadly that image did not get captured.

Media Consumption in Numbers

Books finished: 21Movies watched: 83Songs listened to: 17,737

Books I Finished Reading

This year my goal was to finish Jan Potocki’s The Manuscript Found in Saragossa after having false-started a half-dozen times in the last ten years. Success! Finished the year out with three books tied in some way to death or dying. For those in the midst of dealing with it (or just looking to think about it after avoiding it), Being With Dying and Being Mortal are highly recommended and compliment each other nicely.

Listed in order finished.

A Straight Road with 99 Curves: Coming of Age on the Path of Zenby Gregory Shepherd

Love Affairs of a Bibliomaniac (From Works of Eugene Field Vol VII)by Eugene Field

33 Revolutions per Minute: A History of Protest Songs, from Billie Holiday to Green Dayby Dorian Lynskey

Unnatural Selection: Choosing Boys Over Girls, and the Consequences of a World Full of Menby Mara Hvistendahl

The Late Starters Orchestraby Ari L. Goldman

The River of Soulsby Robert McCammon

Kind of Blue: The Making of the Miles Davis Masterpieceby Ashley Kahn

The Manuscript Found in Saragossaby Jan Potocki

The Fun Partsby Sam Lipsyte

The Dhammapada: A New Translation of the Buddhist Classic with Annotations translated by Gil Fronsdal

The Terrible and Wonderful Reasons Why I Run Long Distancesby Matthew Inman

Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage: A novelby Haruki Murakami

The New Kings of Nonfictionby Ira Glass

Death of a King: The Real Story of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s Final Yearby Tavis Smiley (with David Ritz)

Being with Dying: Cultivating Compassion and Fearlessness in the Presence of Deathby Joan Halifax

Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the Endby Atul Gawande

Nine Horses: Poemsby Billy Collins

Rashomon and Other Storiesby Ryunosuke Akutagawa

Total number of books finished: 21 (three fewer than 2013)

Books re-read: 0

Books written by someone I know or have at least spoken more than a sentence to: 1

Physical / Ebooks (incl. Kindle Singles) finished:

20.5

.5

Fiction / Nonfiction / Poetry:

7

13

1

Buddhism / Music / Death (Buddhism & Death overlap by one book):

3

3

3

Books in progress at the end of the year: 2

Movies I Watched and Re-watched

I declared 2014 the Year of Argento, with a goal of watching all of Argento’s films (mostly) in order. I got just about halfway there and will continue the effort (which will surely get more difficult as I venture into his significantly less interesting later years).

Discovered a new favorite director this year in Krzysztof Kieślowski. Absolutely loved his Three Colors trilogy and got started on his Decalogue series. As usual, I didn’t see too many films from this year, but the ones I did see I really enjoyed (Birdman, Grand Budapest Hotel, Big Hero 6).

]]>http://laze.net/fait/archive/2015/01/01/2014-my-year-in-review/feed/0487882014 Music Year in Reviewhttp://laze.net/fait/archive/2014/12/31/2014-music-year-in-review/
http://laze.net/fait/archive/2014/12/31/2014-music-year-in-review/#respondWed, 31 Dec 2014 23:35:42 +0000http://laze.net/?p=48791Since 2007, I’ve posted a year-end music wrap up that serves mainly as a reference for myself and a few other folks that like to see what I enjoyed (I wish more friends would do the same). I try to stick to new music, no re-releases (well, one compilation album snuck in this year). Here is this year’s.

Everything’s sorted in alphabetical order. (Note: My general rule of thumb is to try and link to the album at the location the artist will get the most money (Bandcamp, their label’s site), but there are still a few Amazon mp3 store links in there (and they’re affiliate links).

Best of 2014

Amerigo Gazaway: Yasiin Gaye: The Departureand The Return
When mash-ups were popular a few years back, you’d occasionally get some mildly interesting pairings, like King Tubby & Wu-Tang but for the most part, they were lazy remixes with little creativity and thought. But Amerigo Gazaway took the mash-up to a whole new level, a level on-par with the best remixes, with The Departure and The Return, where he pairs Mos Def and Marvin Gaye.

Babymetal: Babymetal
On paper, there is no reason that teenaged girls singing J-Pop tunes over speed metal (and occasionally reggae, hip-hop, and electronica) should work, BUT IT DOES. This was my 2 1/2-year-old son’s favorite album of the year and it’s one of mine, too. There’s no denying that since they play the bizarre genre mash-up straight rather than as a gimmick, that’s why it plays so well. They’ve shot a bunch of great videos, too, including Gimmie Chocolate and Headbangya.

Castle & Has-Lo: Return of the Gasface
It’s pretty rare that I closely check for the lyrics and the production on any given hip-hop album, but Return of the Gasface delivers that pay-attention, thoughtful, lyrical hip-hop I love and well-matched soulful, jazzy beats.

D’Angelo & The Vanguard: Black Messiah
A late, somewhat surprise entry from the dude that hasn’t released an album in 15 years. Great variety with lots of funknsoul.

Divine Styler: Def Mask
I’ve been a Styler devotee since 1989 and over the years he’s released some of the most innovative, non-trend-following hip-hop of anyone. It’s been 15 years since his last album (which was amazing) and he picks up where he left off: futuristic funk with bass that will shudder your eardrums and flows for days. Twenty-five years after his debut as part of the Rhyme Syndicate, he’s still an enigma… and I love that.

Hollie Cook: Twice
Recommended to me by Herbivore Josh. Reminds me of a young Sade over reggae riddims. Her mom was in Culture Club and her dad was Sex Pistols drummer Paul Cook. And… and! Her godfather is Boy George!

Joshua Redman: Trios Live
In high school when I was first discovering jazz, I was a big Joshua Redman fan. Got a chance to meet him in 2001 and compliment his circular breathing. But over the last decade, I was basically clueless about what he was doing. Thankfully, I checked into Trios Live and was super pleased to hear Redman in a different role than I was used to hearing him: more intense, experimental, and even more awesome. I mean, c’mon, he even gave the nearly 90-year-old “Mack the Knife” some new life!

Khun Narin: Khun Narin’s Electric Phin Band
Modern Thai psych rock (well, technically, “phin prayuk”) with that rare combination of a great backstory and incredible music recorded live “in a field outside the city of Lom Sak, in the valley of mountains that form a rough border between Thailand’s North and Northeast.”

Lee “Scratch” Perry: Back on the Controls
It is so nice to hear a Lee Perry album worthy of his Black Ark era productions by recreating the signal chain using original equipment and configurations and then letting Scratch loose on the dub.

MindsOne & Kev Brown: Pillars
I love me some Kev Brown beats and MindsOne just fits with him… it’s one of those pairings that works perfectly (“Manipulated” feels like a classic Jeru/Primo collabo or Dilated, depending on your coast).

Naomi Shelton & The Gospel Queens: Cold World
Shelton is somewhere around 70-years-old and still belts it out like a champion. Love her soul, love her voice.

O.S.T.R. & Marco Polo: Kartagina
If you followed this series over the years, you know I love me some O.S.T.R. He’s an old school hip-hop head in Poland that’s not only a great MC (well, he’s got a great voice — I don’t speak Polish, so I have no clue if he’s actually a good lyricist), he’s a killer producer. Teaming up here with Marco Polo, O.S.T.R. strictly plays the MC role. Solid through and through. “What is the Question?” will surely stick in your head for days.

Pharoahe Monch: PTSD – Post Traumatic Stress Disorder
It’s hard to overstate how important Monch has been in hip-hop, consistently pushing boundaries and telling the stories few others are telling. On top of that, he’s still got bars every bit as fire as what he was spitting over 20 years ago. Don’t miss his appearance on the “Bullseye” podcast, either. Great interview (the part with Huey Lewis is worth listening to, as well).

DJ QBert: Extraterrestria and GalaXXXianExactly what I wanted from a 2014 QBert album: heavy thud rumbles and vicious cuts that show why this dude is still the best in the world on the decks. Even better: he released two albums (one focused on turntablism, one on teaming up with MCs — or one from space and one from earth, if you prefer)!

Run the Jewels: Run the Jewels 2
A second chest thudding offering from El-P and Killer Mike. The only thing they could do that might top this is the forthcoming Meow the Jewels. Love “Blockbuster Night Part 1” and “Lie, Cheat, Steal” (dig the use of the Soul Searchers sample previously used in “Jack the Ripper”).

Shawn Lee: Golden Age Against the Machine
The mighty Shawn Lee takes inspiration from early-80s through mid-90s hip-hop and makes a b-boy friendly album with just enough throwback vibe to be fun without being overly serious and technical. Dig the Newcleus electro vibe on “Back to the Future”

Supastition: Honest Living EP
Hip-hop’s everyman Supastition is about as consistent as they come: a dude making a living, doing honest music on the side, hence the title and (familiar) theme of this EP. For us grown ass adults, this type of hip-hop is particularly appealing, especially when well done.

Your Old Droog: EP
I never bought for a second that he was a pitch-shifted Nas, but I do buy that he’s one of the few of the new breed of MCs that deserve the hype they’ve gotten. Sure, he could be labeled “derivative,” but I prefer the term “influenced.” “Nutty Bars,” indeed.

Almost Best of 2014

Chris Read: Small Steps
Original hip-hop, funk, dub, and afro-beat from the dude that brought us the classic Diary megamix. One of those easily overlooked albums, but don’t miss it.

Ghostface Killah: 36 Seasons
Another cinematic epic from Tony Starks with repeated appearances from Kool G Rap and AZ. Not quite on the level of last year’sTwelve Reasons to Die, but dang, two years in a row with albums this strong? Impressive.

L’Orange: The Orchid Days & After the Flowers EP
One of my favorite new(er) producers, I love the warmth and how he manipulates a mood. Sometimes things get a little choppy on the production tip for me, but overall, these are two wonderful, connected albums.

Michael Jackson: Xscape
Surprisingly fresh takes on material recorded as far back as 30 years ago. A template for how posthumous albums of unfinished materials should be handled.

Prince: ART OFFICIAL AGE
The mysterious one returned sounding way fresher than I expected from someone who released his first album 36 years ago to sound. Fun fact: Prince was a Reagan supporter back in the 80s.

Prince Po: Animal Serum
It’s so dope to have great albums from both members of Organized Konfusion in one year. And this one features a track with Saafir & Rock and another with OC and Pharoahe, so yeah.

Ranee Lee: What’s Going On?
Ranee Lee was the first jazz album I ever got to revie over 20 years ago. Though her style of mellow vocal jazz is not usually the way I swing when it comes to the genre, I eagerly await everything she releases. “Where Do You Start” is beautiful and the cover of Marley’s “One Love” is better than one would expect.

Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings: Give the People What They Want
The album’s release was delayed while Sharon battled (and beat the crap out of) bile duct cancer, but worth the wait. Soulful and funky as always, it throws no curveballs. Favorite cuts: “Retreat!,” “Now I See,” and for Sharon, the aptly titled “People Don’t Get What They Deserve.”

Best of 2013 I missed until 2014

Clear Soul Forces: Gold Pp7s

My Daughter’s Favorite Tracks This Year

My daughter, now eight, is much less influenced musically by me than she was in previous years and moreso by classmates, cousins, the radio, etc. As a result, many of her favorite songs absolutely horrify me (“Whistle”) or confound me (“Life is a Highway”). But, she’s finding her way in through the pop morass and occasionally likes some pretty non-pop songs she hears (Roy Budd, Babymetal). Here’s her list of songs she really dug this year.

Roy Budd: “Getting Nowhere in a Hurry”

Charli XCX: “Boom Clap”

One Direction: “You Don’t Know You’re Beautiful”

Owl City: “Good Time”

Gummibär: “I’m a Gummy Bear (The Gummy Bear Song)”

Tom Cochrane: “Life Is A Highway”

OneRepublic: “Counting Stars”

Owl City: “Fireflies”

Meghan Trainor: “All About That Bass”

Demi Lovato: “Let It Go”

Babymetal: “Gimme Chocolate”

Taylor Swift: “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together”

Taylor Swift: “Shake It Off”

Ylvis: “The Fox (What Does The Fox Say?)”

Magic!: “Rude”

P!nk: “Just Give Me A Reason”

Katy Perry: “Roar”

Train: “Hey, Soul Sister”

Pharrell: “Happy”

Flo Rida: “Whistle”

Taio Cruz: “Dynamite”

Flo Rida: “Good Feeling”

My Son’s Favorite Tracks This Year

My son is two-and-a-half and this year started developing some favorite songs, so it’s time for him to get his own section.

Idina Menzel: “Let It Go” (like every other two-year-old on the planet)

The entire Babymetal album

Owl City: “Good Time”

OneRepublic: “Counting Stars”

Best Tracks of 2014

Here’s my list of favorite tracks of the year, along with a Spotify playlist of as many are available there. (Songs not available in the playlist are denoted with a * and a link is provided.)

Note that while the list below is sorted alphabetically, the Spotify playlist has been carefully organized to provide the Optimal, Cohesive Listening ExperienceTM.

Other Stats

]]>http://laze.net/fait/archive/2014/12/31/2014-music-year-in-review/feed/0487912014: The Year in Tweetshttp://laze.net/fait/archive/2014/12/30/2014-the-year-in-tweets/
http://laze.net/fait/archive/2014/12/30/2014-the-year-in-tweets/#respondTue, 30 Dec 2014 22:32:22 +0000http://laze.net/?p=48982Here’s the first of my three year-end posts: my year in Tweets. It should be noted I felt a lot less active on Twitter this year than previous years.

Actually, that’s understating it. My tweets this year were primarily links and retweets with almost nothing of personal substance. Maybe I’ll change that up in 2015.

(EDITED: added a few more tweets; thanks to ThinkUp for the reminders)

]]>http://laze.net/fait/archive/2014/12/30/2014-the-year-in-tweets/feed/0489822013 Music Year in Reviewhttp://laze.net/fait/archive/2014/11/03/2013-music-year-in-review/
http://laze.net/fait/archive/2014/11/03/2013-music-year-in-review/#respondMon, 03 Nov 2014 05:05:07 +0000http://laze.net/?p=48722(It’s almost absurd for me to post a year-in-review post for the previous year in November, but I’ve had this post sitting near-done for a long time and it’s time to just get it posted so I can start on this year’s!)

Since 2007, I’ve really enjoyed putting together these year-end personal “best-of” lists. Since most of my music “journalism” these days is limited to Twitter, I take the time at the end of the year to put together a list what really grabbed me.

Everything’s sorted in alphabetical order. (Note: Many album links are affiliate links to Amazon’s mp3 store.)

Best of 2013

Banda Magda: Amour, T’es La?
I read about this fun little album on the NPR Music site and really dug the French ye-ye influence mixed with samba and other international sounds.

Colossus: Colossus
Rochester, NY-based big band Colossus doesn’t play big band music (if they did, they likely wouldn’t be on this list). Instead, they play that slightly dark, modern jazz oft dubbed nu jazz or future jazz. Whatever the case, this six track album showed me that this style of jazz doesn’t have to be played only in a small group setting for good effect; it actually works really well in a big band setting.

Cornell Campbell Meets Soothsayers: Nothing Can Stop Us
It seems so hard to find new roots reggae that features classic singers and a solid backing band with a real feel for the 70s roots sound. This is one of the rare new reggae albums that fits the bill. Favorite cut: “With You My Heart Belongs.”

Demigodz: Killmatic
Celph, Apathy, and crew give you that aggressive drive time music you need and love. Peep how they flip the Rocky theme.

Erin McKeown: Manifestra
Not my favorite of her releases, but it’s hard to deny that Erin McKeown loves what she does and isn’t afraid to try new sounds. She can always be counted on for a good album.

Ghostface Killah and Adrian Younge: Twelve Reasons to Die
One of the most interesting Wu albums in years. Based on a comic of the same name, it’s hard to imagine a hip-hop concept album that doesn’t feel at least a little corny, but this is it. Though the main theme is Godfather-esque, I actually get more of a 70’s giallo vibe from Adrian Younge’s excellent production, which makes me love it even more. Fantastic stuff all the way through. (Apollo Brown’s remix version of the album called Twelve Reasons to Die: The Brown Tape is also well worth checking out.)

Jazz Addixx: Tomorrow’s Yesterday
I’ve known Ragz for 15 years and Mudd for even longer, so I’m a touch biased. These three guys worked so long and hard on this album and it really shows. They’ve managed to stay true to their 70s-and 80s-soul-jazz-influenced roots while adding layers of complexity and nuance to their tracks that make this one of the most engaging albums of the year. Unown tears the ish out of the mic and his own beat on “Far Out” and you can hear the group’s effortless interaction on “Love Song” and “Ahhh!” where Un and Mudd trade lines while Ragz adds his signature cuts. This is grown up hip-hop that’s not afraid to battle every so often.

Joan Jett & The Blackhearts: Unvarnished
The Joan Jett sound hasn’t changed all that much since the 80s (shoot, since her time with the Runaways), and that is totally, 100% OK. The fact that a 55-year-old can still rock (and be engaging when doing it) like she did at 25 is good enough for me.

Kid Tsunami: The Chase
I’d never heard of Australian-based Tsunami before this album, but I’m glad I found him. The Chase is a brilliant slice of the 90’s boom bap sound. All of key players of the 80s and 90s are involved, including Kool Keith, OC, Percee Pee, El da Sensei, Bahamadia, and KRS-One, and they’re all at their best.. The title track is like “Crooklyn Dodgers part 4” with Buckshot, Chubb Rock, Pharoahe Monch, and Jeru. There’s not a single piece out of place here.

Klaus Layer: The Adventures of Captain Crook
As they say, Klaus Layer is “skilled in the trade of that old boom bap”… with a nice dash of psychedelia to round things out. Love this dude’s instrumentals.

Shawn Lov: Grotesque Heads
Shawn’s an underground NJ hip-hop head from way back (his dad ran the recording studio where many south Jersey classics were recorded) with a deep catalog dating back to when he was only 12 years old. He’s living out in San Fran now and running an arcade, but hooked up with Custodian of Records (aka Self, aka Grizzly Adams) and German producer Sebastian Hochstein to put together this tight collection of tracks with “old days” reminiscences and straight battle rhymes. Nothing fancy, just what I’ve grown to love about Shawn’s music.

The Sign of Four: Hammer, Anvil, Stirrup
Miles Newbold’s (Natural Yogurt Band) new band serves up fantastic funky space jazz with just the right balance of almost exotica melodies, swirling cosmic tones, and jazzified funk.

Son Lux: Lanterns
Synthpop with downtempo breaks and a little boom bap for added depth.

Thao & The Get Down Stay Down: We the Common
Thao Nguyen is on that short list of artists I will check for each and every time. We the Common kicked off 2014 nicely with her blend of catchy indie folk-rock. The title track and “Holy Roller” are awesome.

Valerie June: Pushin’ Against a StonePushin’ Against a Stone held the same appeal for me this year as Michael Kiwanuka’s Home Again did last year: a soulful album with classic sensibilites that doesn’t feel like a kitchy retro-throwback. And the new spin the style gets doesn’t feel forced or mashed up; it feels natural. This type of album is not an easy thing to pull off. Love the lead off track “Workin’ Woman Blues,” “Wanna Be On Your Mind,” and “You Can’t Be Told.”

Yatha Bhuta Jazz Combo: Yatha Bhuta Jazz Combo
Onra’s is one of my favorite producers of the last ten years thanks to his pair of Chinioseries albums and 2012’s Deus Ex Machina by Buddy Sativa was pretty great, too, so naturally I was looking forward to this spiritual jazz collaboration between the two. It didn’t disappoint.

Almost Best of 2013

Aceyalone: Leanin’ On Slick
Acey’s one of those super talented dudes that keeps dropping quality albums quietly. I’ve been a big fan since All Balls Don’t Bounce and (especially) A Book of Human Language. His latest effort is bouncy and jazzy and all growed up, a nice extension of the doo-wop and funk influenced “The Lonely Ones” from 2009. The MC-as-lounge-singer (in a good way) vibe is evidenced by “30 and Up” where Acey declares, “This is for the 30 and up, / Grown folks who’s earnin’ a buck.” He also rocks it on “Workin’ Man’s Blues'” (ever-so-slightly different than the version on The Lonely Ones) and “Hit the Road,” which is way better than it should be using “Hit the Road Jack” as its base.

Al Supersonic And The Teenagers: It’s Alright
If I were a soul singer performing classic soul-style tunes, I’d also call myself Al Supersonic.

Archie Shepp and the Attica Blues Orchestra: I Hear the Sound
It’s going to be hard for Shepp to ever hit me like he did with his 1960s albums, but he’s still got the fire on this Kickstarter-backed album. This orchestral take on some of his classic work is generally quite enjoyable (though I was definitely disappointed by the “Attica Blues” rendition). He brings back “Steam,” “Mama Too Tight,” and “Ujaama,” all of which fare better than “Attica Blues.”

Danny Brown: Old
I never messed with Danny Brown before. The little I’d heard didn’t grab me and I just couldn’t understand why he was held in such high regard among the newer breed of MCs. The first half of Old made it all clear to me. “The Return (feat. Freddie Gibbs)” has funk and soul elements with spacey synths and touches of eastern flutes that is compelling as it gets. “Wonderbread” is wonderfully odd and erratic, like if Sun Ra and Kool Keith covered a nursery rhyme. The first half of the album is significantly more enjoyable than the second, but it’s still a carefully conceived album best ingested as a whole rather than its independent pieces.

Eminem: The Marshall Mathers LP 2
Em’s audience may not be as rabid as they were ten years ago, but no one can deny the guy’s still got bars who “can just walk up to a mic and just bust.” And he’s still capable of making aggressive, offensive music that makes you want to punch someone in the face. Can you imagine back in 1988 the idea of a 40-year-old white rapper (hell, anyone over 35 at that point) being a legit MC? It’s not a perfect album (those sung hooks, man), but it’s a good listen. Favorite cuts: “Survival” (a song there’s no reason I should like, but I do), “Berserk,” and “Rap God.”

Hieroglyphics: The Kitchen
This one didn’t seem to get much attention after its release, but it’s a solid, classic Hiero crew album. Not everything clicks, but if you’re a long time Hiero fan, you didn’t leave disappointed.

Jasiri X: Ascension
It’s hard not to like a dude like Jasiri X who is out with a new track with accompanying video within what feels like moments of any major politically-charged event. Though his beats don’t always grab me, Jasiri X is this generation’s Paris (who had the same issue with beats after his first two albums).

Las Supper: Back to the Future
Big Daddy Kane’s “grown-up” rap/soul/funk band certainly offers a matured, relaxed version of Kane, but there are still some classic fast rap Kane moments throughout. The guy’s still got it and though this new project didn’t always hit on all cylinders, it’s a fun listen and probably a pretty awesome live show. Dig “Where Do We Go (From Here)” and “Last Chance.”

L’Orange and Stik Figa: The City Under the City
The mighty Stik Figa mayne sounds great over L’Orange’s soulified beats.

Best of 2012 I missed until 2013

My Daughter’s Favorite Tracks This Year

My daughter, now seven, has been gravitating more toward pop tunes, but every so often still surprises me with a random song I’m playing that she’ll like. Here are her new favorite tracks from 2013 (not limited to songs from this year).

Donald Byrd: “(Fallin’ Like) Dominoes”

Thao & The Get Down Stay Down: “We the Common (for Valerie Bolden)”

Thao & The Get Down Stay Down: “Holy Roller”

Quiet Riot: “Cum on Feel the Noize”

Owl City: “Fireflies” (this kills me a little bit inside)

Best Tracks of 2013

Here’s my list of favorite tracks of the year, along with a Spotify playlist of as many are available there. (Songs not available in the playlist are denoted with a *.)

Note that while the list below is sorted alphabetically, the Spotify playlist has been carefully organized to provide a cohesive listening experience ™.

Other stats

]]>http://laze.net/fait/archive/2014/11/03/2013-music-year-in-review/feed/048722Genealogy: Get that dang family tree started today!http://laze.net/fait/archive/2014/10/09/genealogy-get-that-dang-family-tree-started-today/
http://laze.net/fait/archive/2014/10/09/genealogy-get-that-dang-family-tree-started-today/#commentsThu, 09 Oct 2014 18:16:49 +0000http://laze.net/?p=48877This is a post that I’ve been meaning to write for a while, but it took a post by Chris challenging bloggers to post more frequently and a personal request from the same Chris for some information on this topic to finally make me sit down and write it. And it still took me a few weeks.

Let me start by telling you this: no matter how long you work on your family history, you will never, ever type genealogy correctly the first time. Now, with that out of the way…

Growing up, I remember one member of my family (hi, Aunt Jeanette!) who was known as the person in the family taking care of researching family history. She worked on it for many years and got some outstanding information. I always thought it was great that she was doing it, and an interest in genealogy started to spring. I put a simple tree together with my dad, presumably for a class project.

Though my interest waxed and waned, I never really did much aside from buy a piece of family tree software, install it, and then forget about it. But eight years ago when my daughter was born, the interest came back with a passion. I wanted to put together a family tree with her as the root and research not only both sides of my family, but my wife’s family as well.

This post outlines the approach I took and what I found useful, then develops a set of steps around it for others that might just be at the cusp of getting started with their own family tree.

Choose a platform

Before you do anything, give some consideration to how you want to keep track of all the information you’re going to gather. While there quite a few choices, the good news is GEDCOM. GEDCOM is a simple file format developed back in 1984 that (almost) every piece of genealogy software that exists can export to and import from. So, if you choose a tool that you end up not liking, you’ll be able to transition to another tool with a minimum of fuss.

While it might be tempting to use an online service as the primary location to store your tree, I’d highly recommend instead choosing a piece of desktop software that syncs with online storage. The two major choices here are MyHeritage Family Tree Builder, which syncs with the MyHeritage site, and Family Tree Maker, which syncs with Ancestry.com. It’s quite a crowded field, of course, so set aside some time to try out a few.

I ended up choosing MyHeritage’s Family Tree Builder because I liked the interface and the price is right (free).

Just get started

With software in hand, jump in. Pick the root of your tree and start entering everything and everyone you know off the top of your head. If you know a name, but not a birthdate, that’s OK: add them and what you know you about them. I promise you that you’ll be circling back around to every person in your tree multiple times over the years adding more and more information. And if you’re not, you’re doing it wrong.

Ask family

At this point, you’ve done your initial brain dump and probably gotten pretty used to it. Now’s the time to start reaching out to family members for additional names, details, and stories. Ask for paperwork, photos, family bibles, death announcements, newspaper clippings, and anything else you can think of.

I found that family started getting very interested in the project once I started asking questions. I think genealogy is one of those things that everyone gives a passing thought to, but few end up making the leap into heavy research.

Sign up for a service (or more than one)

Another reason I liked MyHeritage is that their online service has a decent free tier, allowing a tree of up to 250 people and 500 megs of storage for photos. As you get further into your tree, you’ll probably want to move up to a paid version of a service not only for storing your tree, but for doing research.

The two major sites, again, for this are Ancestry and MyHeritage. Which is better? Which should you subscribe to? Here’s my wishy-washy take: either and, at times, maybe both.

I have an ongoing subscription with MyHeritage that covers storage for my growing tree of over 1200 family members and also a fair number of databases for research. However, every so often Ancestry will run a really good promotion and I’ll sign up for six months with their service as well. Ancestry’s database depth, particularly worldwide, is better than MyHeritage’s, but it’s also more expensive.

Sharing your tree

You’ll probably want to share your tree on a public service, at least to some degree, in order to find matching relatives in other public trees. However, there’s certainly information in your database that you won’t want to share, such as social security numbers, addresses, personal stories, or audio or video recordings. In this case, you may want to set up a separate web site for just your family. If you’ve got some web savvy and aren’t afraid of web hosting services, databases, and PHP, go ahead and set up a password protected directory and store your tree there. The method I’ve used is to set up a simple blog at the root (using Anchor CMS, though any simple CMS will work fine, as will plain old flat files) to share news and family stories that link into the tree itself, then link up a full copy of the tree in a subdirectory that’s displayed using HuMo-gen, a PHP app that can take GEDcom and photo exports from your application and display the data in a meaningful way.

Research, match, contact

Once you’re signed up for a service (or more than one), dive into your research. This is simultaneously fun, informative, time consuming, and exasperating. I can’t tell you how many nights I’ve spent digging through records, entering data, and then looking at the clock through bleary eyes and shaky hands realizing it’s 2am and I really need to get to bed.

Beyond just researching records, though, family tree storage sites are also excellent for their ability to match members of your tree with members of other trees stored with the service. This is what ended up breaking open the most doors for me. My own tree went back a little over a hundred years, but there were lots of questions. Thanks to research others had done and shared, I was able to expand certain branches of the tree back as far as 1300s Germany (when I didn’t even know I had any German ancestry in me!). Granted, you’re putting a lot of faith in other people and there are plenty of garbage trees out there with questionable data (parents four years older than their children). But, if you know this and go into this stage of research with an open, but skeptical, mind, you’ll get leads that you never even imagined.

The last part of this step involves contacting others beyond your own known relatives. You’ll start bumping into third cousins all over the place and reaching out to them can help illuminate sections of your tree you’re getting stuck on.

DNA services

At some point, when you’ve been at the research thing a while, you’ll want to test technology even further and try one (or more!) of the DNA matching services. The main ones are 23andme, MyHeritage’s Family Finder, and Ancestry’s AncestryDNA. Again, there are pros and cons to all of these services and you need to spend some time comparing and contrasting to decide which you want to go with. You may decide on none, or under certain circumstances, you may want to try all of them. If you’re going to go in, do so knowing all the risks that come with DNA testing (would you be comfortable finding out you were adopted? outing a relative as a parent of an unknown cousin?). “Uprooted” gives a good rundown of the new privacy implications we’re just beginning to run into with widespread DNA testing.

I decided on 23andme and found the results quite interesting, though it took almost a year before I made a connection with a new relative–a third cousin–solely through DNA matching. She had tried all three services in an attempt to find out more about her father’s side of the family, which she knew nothing about. After matching with me and one or two other cousins, we found out we shared great-great-grandparents. She also turned me onto GEDmatch, a completely free site that allows you to upload your DNA (creepy!) and compare it with others across DNA testing services. No matter which of the three major services you go with, consider uploading to GEDmatch as well.

The next level

At this point, you may need more information than can be found online. Large amounts of data have yet to be digitized and indexed, so at this point, you’ll want to look for genealogy experts living in various parts of the world to do feet-on-the-ground research or maybe even plan a research trip yourself.

I’m not here yet, but I’m getting close.

Loop

The great thing about working on your family tree is that you’ll never be done. There’s always more to find out, more paths to follow, more stories to archive, more mysteries to solve. Keep looping back around and enjoying the process over and over. It’s a blast.

]]>http://laze.net/fait/archive/2014/10/09/genealogy-get-that-dang-family-tree-started-today/feed/248877The Boulder City Pet Cemeteryhttp://laze.net/fait/archive/2014/06/05/the-boulder-city-pet-cemetery/
http://laze.net/fait/archive/2014/06/05/the-boulder-city-pet-cemetery/#respondFri, 06 Jun 2014 02:49:49 +0000http://laze.net/?p=48617Last year on a trip to Las Vegas, I was on the lookout for off-the-beaten path places to visit. Of course, I had to hit up Redd Foxx’s old house, but even more fun and further off the path was the Boulder City Pet Cemetery, which got a brief mention in Weird Las Vegas and Nevada. There was surprisingly little online about it, especially about its specific whereabouts. I was able to find a blurry map and enough of a textual description to get to the general area. Given that it’s in the middle of the desert right off of route 95, you might figure it’s obvious and easy to see, but it’s amazingly well obscured considering it’s only a hundred feet off the highway. It’s not something you see when driving by, even if you’re looking for it.

It’s rumored that people started burying their pets in this surprisingly expansive area as early as the 1930s. Over the following decades, dozens–if not hundreds–of families came to build memorials to their dogs and cats. Some are very simple crosses with a name written in pen while others are more complex, involving fences, decorations, and professionally chiseled headstones. The cemetery is on what was originally federal land (and now owned by Boulder City) and it was never legal to bury any remains there, yet folks did anyway. And the remains are undisturbed to this day.

This site (which refers to the “El Dorado Pet Cemetery,” but it’s the same place; I’ve also seen it referred to as the “Searchlight Road Pet Cemetery”) offers up an explanation from Brok Armantrout, Director of Community Development for Boulder City:

The pet cemetery was an unsanctioned use of federal land from the very beginning (1931). At one time, friends of the cemetery tried to work out a deal with the federal government to legitimize the site, went as far as getting congressional assistance, but for one reason or another, the project stalled and died. If you have three hours of free time, the history of the effort can be found at the BLM field office on the far northwest side of the LV Valley.

When the City purchased the Eldorado Valley in 1995, roughly 85,000 acres were designated as Desert Tortoise Habitat through a formal easement designation that was adopted by ordinance. The ordinance prohibits all sorts of activities, one of which is the internment of remains.

It’s unclear why citizens started burying their animals in the desert (I don’t believe for a second the idea laid out in this piece that offers the unlikely possibility it’s a mafia dumping ground). I suspect it grew out of a simple need: folks needed to bury their pets, had no where to do it, and wanted to find a location that would remain undisturbed.

While there is an element of eeriness about this rogue pet cemetery (I swear I heard the sound of a leash jingling), I found myself moved by the tributes to clearly beloved family members. If it hadn’t been 150 degrees outside, I suspect I could have stayed there all day.

Here’s a video I shot in an attempt to show the expanse of the cemetery. Excuse the annoying lens dust.

And some photos:

The cemetery has still-readable graves dating back to the mid-1960s and technically shouldn’t be there, but the (first federal and now local) government has wisely left it alone.

The cemetery is still in use today and had a grave that was only a few months old.

There were some heartfelt tributes, like this one to “Mr. Kitty.”

Magic’s was amongst the more elaborate, complete with a fence, dog house, and a sitting bench.

Friskey’s grave was adorned with dozens of stuffed animals.

Jazz’s name seemed to be written out in dried poop… but that can’t be, right?

No caption needed.

Here’s the full slideshow of all the photos I took at the cemetery.

]]>http://laze.net/fait/archive/2014/06/05/the-boulder-city-pet-cemetery/feed/048617My Conversation with Applehttp://laze.net/fait/archive/2014/05/05/my-conversation-with-apple/
http://laze.net/fait/archive/2014/05/05/my-conversation-with-apple/#respondMon, 05 May 2014 22:35:52 +0000http://laze.net/?p=48808Me: Hey, Apple, I’d love to submit my new podcast for inclusion in your iTunes Store podcast directory! Do you have a web form I can use?

Apple: We’d love to have you submit your podcast! All you have to do is download our desktop iTunes application and submit it through there.

Me: …

Apple: Don’t worry! It’s only 145 megs.

Me: …

(minutes pass)

Me: OK, fine. I’ll download your terrible, terrible piece of software just to submit what could be done with a simple web form.

(more minutes pass, downloading happens, submission happens)

Apple: We’ve got your submission! We’ll get back to you.

(a day passes)

Apple: Sorry. We’re not including your podcast. It could be for “a variety of reasons.”

Me: (throws head back and screams)

]]>http://laze.net/fait/archive/2014/05/05/my-conversation-with-apple/feed/048808Seen, Heard, and Read Vol. 4http://laze.net/fait/archive/2014/01/21/seen-heard-and-read-vol-4/
http://laze.net/fait/archive/2014/01/21/seen-heard-and-read-vol-4/#respondTue, 21 Jan 2014 21:52:16 +0000http://laze.net/?p=48719(As I continue to finish up my 2013 Music Year in Review post, figured I’d squeeze in one of these to share some stuff I’ve enjoyed recently.)

Seen

2014 is “The Year of Argento” for me, where I work through his entire filmography in mostly chronological order. Of course, I’ve already screwed that up a bit, in that Four Flies… is his third movie (and the third movie in his “animal trilogy”). The music is fantastic, courtesy of Ennio Morricone. Apparently, though, the music was a source of contention between Argento and Morricone, making this the last movie where they worked together until the mid-90s. Italian prog-rockers Goblin would take over soundtrack duties.

Trademark Argento visuals and a mostly comprehensible plot make this as enjoyable as any of Argento’s gialli, goofy ending aside.

Heard

There are a lot of very good mixes popping up all the time, but very few that could be deemed “instant classics.” This one, though, may be one of them. I went in expecting a solid mix of tunes from PE’s legendary album but what I heard was so much more. It’s a blend of PE’s music with the samples that inspired and interviews with the Bomb Squad about the production and the creation of the album. What makes it really special, though, is that it provides the musical, cultural, and political context for the album. Beyond just playing sample sources, DJ Moneyshot seamlessly integrates the music and speeches that inspired the productions. If there’s a college-level hip-hop class that requires listening of It Takes a Nation of Millions…, they should offer extra credit to those that follow it with this mix.

Essential.

Read

I was on a bit of a time travel kick late last year and was looking for a recommendation for a movie I may have missed. Naturally, I went to Joe G. from Exhumed Films for a suggestion. Rather than a movie suggestion, though, he shared this 1970 novel about a man chosen by a hush-hush agency to travel to 1880’s New York City as part of a government experiment in time travel. What drew me most to this book is that it doesn’t try to be outlandish. No need to embellish the idea of time travel — the experience itself is enough. No crazy machines, no “Butterfly Effect”-type changes to history (indeed, an alternate theory is introduced in this book that looks as time as a stream and simple changes as sticks in the stream unlikely to truly interrupt the grand flow of the river), and no implausible plot twists.

]]>http://laze.net/fait/archive/2014/01/21/seen-heard-and-read-vol-4/feed/0487192013: My Year in Reviewhttp://laze.net/fait/archive/2013/12/31/2013-my-year-in-review/
http://laze.net/fait/archive/2013/12/31/2013-my-year-in-review/#respondWed, 01 Jan 2014 04:48:59 +0000http://laze.net/?p=48725After I was laid off last year and spent a few months freelancing, I started 2013 convinced that this year would age me more than any previous year. I’d have to say it has. Between the freelancing, starting up my tea shop, and starting a new full-time job, there was enough stress throughout the year that by November, I looked at myself in the mirror and noticed my face looked more worn and there were more grey hairs. It’s cool, though. I’m ready to age gracefully.

Here’s a look back at my year with unimportant events mixed in with unimportant events. A few pictures are thrown in. Some links. Etc.

A new co-worker told me she thought I looked young, just out of college

The Month of Weng Weng!

June

Trip to Vegas, including a trip to a desert pet cemetery (longer post overdue and forthcoming) and Redd Foxx’s old house, a run in 115 degree temperatures, and meeting up with Lindsay, my vegan twin, for the first time

United lands late, I run to catch a connecting flight (also United), arrive 5 minutes before departure and hear the “doors closed” ding as I run up, leaving me stranded for seven hours after a red-eye flight. But at least I got to sit in a middle seat near the bathroom for the next flight. Perks.

]]>http://laze.net/fait/archive/2013/12/31/2013-my-year-in-review/feed/0487252013 Year in Tweetshttp://laze.net/fait/archive/2013/12/29/2013-year-in-tweets/
http://laze.net/fait/archive/2013/12/29/2013-year-in-tweets/#commentsSun, 29 Dec 2013 19:17:24 +0000http://laze.net/?p=48737Working on my annual year-in-review and music year-in-review posts, but to hold you over a bit, a few tweets I enjoyed when I looked back through my archive this year:

Something I've learned in the 6+ years running One Sentence: there are many deeply sad, depressed people thinking dark thoughts.